PREFACE. HE author of the following pages having learned, THE from magazines, newspapers, and reviews, fent from England to this ifland, fome of the many calumnies, industriously propagated, against the proprietors of negro flaves in the West Indies; and the attempts made to perfuade men of humanity and religion, to exert their endeavours to procure a law to abolish slavery and the flave trade, as offenfive to both; thought it might be ufeful to lay before the public the real fituation and treatment of flaves in the fugar colonies; an undertaking which a long and intimate knowledge of, and refidence, at different times, in most of the islands, from Barbadoes to Jamaica, particularly qualifies him for. The account he has given, he is fatisfied, will be acknowledged by every perfon, acquainted with the West Indies, to be a lefs favourable reprefentation of the negroes' fituation than the fact would justify; but as he fpeaks only of general treatment, he has avoided mentioning the attention which particular people fhew their flaves. flaves. It is now not uncommon, on fugar eftates, in feveral of the islands, to have a kind of marquees, or tents pitched, or in their ftead, thatched sheds erected, in different places, on the land for the negroes, in cafe of hafty and violent showers, to retire to, and alfo to employ two or three boys, with mules, to bring grafs, to prevent the gang having any thing to do after they leave the field; which is confidered injurious to their healths, as they are often detained, in wet weather, till the whole gang are collected together, to be called over. He has confined himself also to the fituation of the flaves in the islands. It never was fuppofed they were treated with more tenderness on the continent; but it was because he treated of the negroes in the islands; that he has not urged in proof of their fatisfaction in their present station, the very small comparative numbers which could be induced to quit their mafters in Virginia and the Carolinas, when freedom, and every other temptation was held out to them, which could be thought of, for the purpose of enticing them to runaway. It was the author's original intention to have done no more than point out the extreme improbability, not to say abfurdity, of the accounts given of the planters cruelty to their flaves; but observing that not only individuals had united themfelves upon this occafion, but that the two Univerfities, and other refpectable public focieties, had addreffed the Houfe of Commons to abolish the flave trade, as inconfiftent with the Chriftian religion; he could not help respecting fuch authorities; and having doubts how far he might venture to fay any thing in favour of a commerce fo generally condemned, he thought it incumbent on him first to fearch the fcriptures, to learn whether flavery was inconfiftent with the revealed will of the Deity. The refult of his enquiry was perfectly fatisfactory to himself; and he thought it but right to point out fome few of the many paffages to be found in the facred volumes, which justify that commerce. Since the following observations went to the prefs, the author has the great satisfaction to find, that he might have pursued his original plan without any injury to the cause he has endeavoured to fupport, as he has feen a pamphlet by the Reverend Mr. Harris, of Liverpool, who has so clearly proved, from the scriptures, that flavery is neither con trary to the law nor the gospel, that it is scarcely poffible for the moft confcientious believer, who reads that tract, to doubt in future, whether the man fervant and the maid fervant is not as much a man's property as "his ox or his ass, or any thing that is his." To a British subject, the word flavery conveys an idea in fome measure different from what it raifes in the. mind sof most other people in Europe. But it is to be doubted, b doubted, if the idea entertained by my countrymen can be eafily explained by many of them. Every fubmiffion to the will of another, every degree of fervitude, every restraint upon a man's perfonal liberty, is, in fome fort, a fpecies of flavery. If this obfervation is juft, which is the nation in Europe, where, in fome inftances, personal liberty is restrained by feverer laws than in England? If by liberty is understood, people being governed by laws to which they have given their affent by themselves, or their reprefentatives, without entering into an enquiry, whether the bulk of the people in England have, or have not that privilege, it may furely be truly faid, the inhabitants of these colonies do not poffefs it to any great extent; and if their property is to be taken from them, or much leffened in value, which it certainly will be, if the prefent attempt should fucceed, either in the whole, or in part, they will themselves become flaves, in the ftead of those who are now called fo. About the time of Lord Mansfield's determination in the cafe of Mr. Stuart's negro, the imaginations of the populace of London were as much heated by the cry of liberty, as they were a few years ago by the name of the Proteftans religion, and as thofe of the people in Great Britain feem in general to be now with the ideas of |